The handle broke on our dishwasher awhile back. A little 2 1/2-inch bar acts as an axis between the handle and the locking mechanism. broke into 2 pieces Its no real suprise that after many years of wear and tear this bar has given way. When the bar broke the first time we were lucky that the dishwasher was open. Without this tiny bar the handle becomes ineffective.

I’ve fixed the handle a few different ways. The first time I was able to find the bar pieces and glued the parts together. The second time I could only find half of the bar. Being a super genius, I glued a nail to the leftover half of the bar, figuring a nail would suffice.

This time the handle broke with the the door shut. Worse yet, the handle broke off stuck up inside the dishwasher. There are no screws to get into dishwasher from the outside. All the screws are on the inside of the door. I brainstormed a few ideas with some co-workers on how to get into the dishwasher. We came up with the following three fixes:

1. Sometimes dishwashers are just set in underneath the cabinet. Try pulling it out and hope there’s some way in.

2. Hope that the handle has fallen out of the dishwasher, leaving space to reach the locking mechanism with my fingers.

3. Open the front door with a sawsall.

For all of you hoping to hear a sawsall story, I’m sorry. I was actually able to get into the handle space and wiggle the lock open. But, you might ask, what did I do about the broken bar? The original bar was finally lost. It must have fallen out or something. I took the handle to Home Depot and was able to find a nail that would do the job handily. The smallest amount of nails I could buy though was a 1-pound box. So if this happens ever again, and chances are that it will, I have 999 backup replacement “bars” just in case.